Raaji visits Mithi & Chelhar with partners UNESCO & TEA

Do you believe an animated cartoon character can teach more values, solve more problems and make kids more creative? Do you think an animated character can deliver feminist messages of equality and empowerment to a rural audience? Do you think topics considered extremely taboo such as honor, abuse, harassment, menstrual hygiene can be weaved into animated story lines? Do you think animated content could be customized and regionalised in such a way that watching it would make you think, the character was actually YOU?

We were convinced, animated content could do all that and more! We saw a vision in 2017. We called this vision Raaji, a name very common for girls in areas bordering India & Pakistan. We envisioned that Raaji could teach topics no one would tell girls about. Topics considered taboo!

But how would we do it?

Simple, we’d create short animated videos dubbed in various languages featuring our superheroine Raaji, put them on a USB, get a projector and screen them in classrooms all across Pakistan.

This year, our partners UNESCO & Transforming Education Through Arts allowed us to make this vision a reality.They gave us 5 schools in some of the underprivileged areas of Sindh. They provided us with a local advisor who spoke Dharki and access inside schools in Mithi & Chelhar so we could meet the kids, parents and their teachers.